The Seduction Of Misty Mundae

Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

The Charge

An innocent girl comes of age and learns all kinds of ways to get it on.

The Case

The DVD of The Seduction of Misty Mundae feels like an artifact from
some bizarre alternate universe where the dreams of Burt Reynolds's character in
Boogie Nights came true. Porn (at
least the soft-core, Skinemax variety) has become a legitimate arm of the film
industry, with movies that actually tell stories and concern themselves with
character development.

Soft-core cutie Misty Mundae (Lord of the G-Strings, Mummy
Raider, The Girl Who Shagged
Me) stars as "Misty," an innocent teenage girl who undergoes her
sexual coming of age at the hands of her older, wiser Aunt Inga (Julian Wells,
Flesh for Olivia, Who Wants to Be
an Erotic Billionaire?). This plot, such as it is, provides Misty (or, uh,
"Misty") with opportunities galore to shed her innocence through
voyeurism, tentative sexual experimentation, and finally a full-blown lesbian
love scene with her aunt. (In case you find incest distasteful, a throwaway line
at the end of the movie reveals that Inga is just Misty's mother's close friend,
not a biological aunt.)

All of this is handled with much more sensitivity and style than is
customary in movies of this kind. The plot and dialogue are predictably weak,
but Misty's sexual awakening and new-found pleasures come across as almost
sweet. This is due in large part to Ms. Mundae's surprising on-screen
vulnerability; she comes across as believably shy and tentative. Director
Michael Raso (Girl Seduction, Inside Misty Mundae) states in the
commentary track that he was tired of the usual approach to eroticism in films
of this kind and wanted a new (perhaps kinder and gentler?) approach that
incorporated sex scenes as an essential part of a real story. Raso was inspired
by the works of skin flick legend Joe Sarno from the 1960s and 1970s, such as Inga. His goal was to attempt to
recapture the innocence and wonder of the "first time" and allow
viewers to experience it through the eyes of Misty. Whether the attempt succeeds
or fails will be largely a matter of personal taste, but he does manage to make
the sex scenes (even hot, steamy, lesbians gettin' it on) warmer and less
mechanical than is typically the case.

This DVD sports a collection of extra features almost on a par with
"special editions" from some of the major studios. As noted earlier,
there is a commentary track pairing director Michael Raso and editor Tony
Marsiglia. Raso explains how he got into the erotic film business. Bascially, he
went to school to make movies, and he had to work somewhere, and this is the
niche he found. The commentary is surprisingly engaging, with Raso explaining
his difficulties in making the kind of story-driven erotic film he wanted,
maintaining a sense of mystery and drama, while also bearing in mind the
"deliverables" required of him. It seems that distributors of this
kind of movie demand a certain number of "deliverables"—specific
nude shots of the leads, such as a certain number of butt shots, breast shots,
full frontals, and so forth. Trying to tell a story and deliver all the
requisite shots is one of the challenges of making erotic films. He also gives
some behind the scenes information on his star, Misty Mundae. It seems that
Mundae, being heterosexual, has no problem doing lesbian scenes because they
don't really affect her. On the other hand, hetero scenes are tougher for her to
do, since they hit closer to home. Raso's account of the making of the film is
fascinating, partly because he comes across as so old-fashioned, almost prudish,
in his approach.

Other special features on the disc include an interview with Raso about the
making of the film, four minutes of backstage footage that is basically Julian
Wells and Allanah Rhodes goofing off, a photo shoot featuring Julian Wells, and
a collection of trailers for other Misty Mundae vehicles. Also included is a
vintage bit of erotica, a racy peep show from 1965, what I suppose used to be
called a stag film. Of course, our perceptions of what qualifies as
"racy" have changed over the years, and a girl who performs a tame
striptease and smokes a cigarette might not qualify any more. Finally, there is
also a bonus CD of the film's soundtrack, performed by two-man band The Pink
Delicates. It sounds exactly like what you'd expect the soundtrack album for a
soft-porn movie to sound like.

The Seduction of Misty Mundae is pretty well done for what it is, and
it avoids the campiness and spoofery of her other, better known titles. The
special features with director Mike Raso are more interesting than I expected,
but I still don't think they make this DVD worth picking up.